10 Horrific Crimes Inspired By Popular Films

Horror movies are there to scare us and have us on the edge of our seats, or cowering behind them, while at the same time entertain us. However for some people this is a source of inspiration for horrific crimes. These are 10 Horrific crimes inspired by popular films, lonely people with very disturbing mentality acting out there favourite movies unbelievable!

Taxi Driver

This one is without a doubt one of the most infamous examples of crimes that were inspired by a film. Now sure this film didn’t influence the crime itself but the film did cause the criminal to do what he did.

In this 1976 Scorsese classic Robert Di Niro plays a mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran named Travis Bickle that works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City.

Where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute (played by Jodie Foster) in the process.

Most sane people can watch this film and just enjoy it, but John Hinckley Jr was not your typical "sane" person. Hinckley believed that Travis Bickle was talking to him through the film, so what did he do next?

He attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

A Clockwork Orange

It should come as no surprise that this film has caused a lot of controversy. Hell this film pretty much IS controversial. Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange has been the inspiration for many twisted real-life crimes, specifically throughout Britain.

The crimes have exhibited similarities with the film, but one of the most bizarre cases involved a man named John Ricketts who was dressed up as a droog from A Clockwork Orange and assaulted a woman dressed as Little Britain‘s Vicky Pollard at an office party.

The violent movie was banned from UK cinemas because of the increase in violent crimes following its release.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Wes Craven once again makes it on the list. Wes Craven is a genius when it comes to the Horror Genre, However his films always tend to bring some sort of controversy with their release.

The famous 80's horror film, Nightmare on Elm Street, was the inspiration for Daniel Gonzalez’s killing spree.

In 2004, the paranoid schizophrenic went on a drug-fuelled rampage and murdered four random people, including a doctor and his wife. Gonzalez decided to arm himself with several knives and decided to copy Freddy Krueger’s outrageous killing spree.

Official reports claimed that Gonzalez did not receive proper treatment for his mental condition. He was given six life sentences for the four murders, as well as two attempted murders throughout England. In 2007, Gonzalez committed suicide in his cell.

The Dark Knight

I’ve never truly understood why everybody wanted to be The Joker. Sure he’s a fun villain but he is exactly that…..A villain!

Everyone knows about the tragedy in Colorado and the orange-haired man who cried “I am the Joker!” before shooting up a movie theatre full of Batman fans during the 2012 premiere of the final Nolan Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. The incident saw the deaths of 12 people and multiple casualties.

This man however is not the only Joker-inspired guy who wanted to need nothing but carnage. In 2010, a Wisconsin man was sentenced to almost a year in jail after he broke into his cousin’s home and assaulted him while dressed as the Joker.

The man had suspected his cousin of sleeping with his ex-girlfriend and attacked the two of them when he found them in bed together. It’s doubtful the Joker would approve, because while that’s a terrible motive, it makes entirely too much sense for an insane character like the Joker.

A much more Joker-like incident occurred in 2009, when a teacher fended off an attack from an Indiana high school student. The girl came at the teacher with a razor blade, but not before she excused herself to the bathroom to apply Joker-style makeup and slice her cheeks into his trademark smile. That is just messed up.

Heat 1995

So oddly enough, this shootout was completely inspired by the epic shootout scene from the 1995 film, ‘Heat’.

Larry Philips and Emil Matasareanu attempted to rob the North Hollywood Bank of America in February of 1997.

These two men were heavily armed with fully automatic AK-47's, homemade body armour, and medication known as Phenobarbital to calm their nerves.

To hide their identities, they put on their ski masks and entered the bank at 9:17. The shootout between the robbers and the police took 44 minutes with casualties including 10 police officers and 7 civilians seriously wounded.

In the end however, the two robbers were gunned down by police reinforcements, despite having heavier artillery.

First Blood

First Blood is a freaking awesome film, However you have to admit that it may have been a bit too far fetched when closely observing some of the action sequences and questioning how an entire police force and eventually the freaking military couldn’t take down John Rambo.

The 1982 action film was a bleak portrayal of the damage the Vietnam War had inflicted upon young American men, personified by Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo. He is accosted by police, chased into the woods, and relentlessly pursued after accidentally killing an officer.

Eventually he’s driven to gunning down huge swaths of town. There were many police reports in the wake of the first film of young men attempting to imitate their “hero”, John Rambo. Now let’s make things clear here. John Rambo is a hero in sense of what he did in the military, However what he did during the first film should NOT be classed as something heroic and people trying to imitate his actions from the first film is pretty scary to think.

These reports were said to be primarily in the Canadian wilderness. One man, dressed in army fatigues and a red headband, was shot to death in a standoff with police after killing an officer. Another, an 18-year-old man in the Toronto area, was found lurking in a swampy ravine wearing khakis and face paint and carrying a music stand.

Yet another, also dressed in army clothes and a painted face, was pursued for two weeks in the Ontario woods while he launched rocks with a slingshot—just like Rambo . . . except that this guy was launching them at children.

The film’s creators disowned any responsibility for the crimes, but while psychologists agreed that the movie wasn’t to blame, it certainly provided an ill-suited role model to these deranged men.

Interview with a Vampire

Okay now this one is something strange to say the least. I mean, you wouldn’t expect to see any crimes inspired by the 1994 adaptation of the Anne Rice classic that mortals can reenact.

Daniel Sterling and his girlfriend of eight years, Lisa Stellwagen, watched the movie together on November 17, 1994. That night, Lisa woke up at about 3:00 AM to find Daniel staring at her. He told her, “Tonight you’re going to die. I’m going to kill you and drink your blood.”

At which point, she apparently rolled over and went back to sleep, possibly murmuring “That’s nice, dear,” because it wasn’t until later that day that Daniel stabbed her seven times and sucked the blood from her wounds. It is curious however that the court case didn’t go into specifics on why she didn’t run out of bed screaming immediately, like a normal person probably would have.

Daniel was kind enough to make it clear that he didn’t blame the movie, although he admitted it did influence his plan. As you’d expect however, the jury didn’t buy it as a defence though, and was swiftly convicted of attempted first-degree murder, among several other charges.

American Psycho / Silence of the Lambs

In 2004, 14 year old Michael Hernandez decided it was a good idea to stab one of his middle school classmate to death.

The Hernandez admitted to modelling his behaviour after the serial killers in American Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs.

The South Florida teen said he identified with the horror movie murderers and wanted to act out their roles in his real-life plan to become a serial killer.

Hernandez believed God gave him special powers and agreed with his decision to kill his classmate. In 2008, While still in his teens, the classmate was charged with first degree murder.

Fight Club

Fight Club is such a good movie. Sure some people understand it but it is without a doubt an underrated gem when you understand it. David Fincher’s 1999 film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s gritty debut novel struck a chord with men who felt they’d been neutered by Western society.

Fight Club’s world of underground bare-knuckle boxing matches and organised terrorism was terribly attractive, and it was only a matter of time before the fact that it was also terribly illegal was no longer any real concern.

The most serious crime committed in relation to this film was in New York City over Memorial Day weekend in 2009. Homemade bombs were set off in various locations around the city, including a Starbucks in the Upper East Side, apparently modelled after the film’s destruction of businesses they considered symbolic of their oppression.

These bombings that took place were eventually traced to a man called Kyle Shaw, a member of a local “fight club,” after he bragged about it to his peers.

Because of this film, Fight clubs have started to pop up all over the world thanks to the popularity of this film, among populations as diverse as American software developers, Australian schoolboys, and British prisons.

Scream

It’s pretty safe to say that Wes Craven’s 1996 film was a groundbreaking moment in horror movie history. Scream was a tongue-in-cheek parody of the genre’s tropes that still managed to be horrifying.

It was so creative and innovated in fact that according to an American judge, The film was a “very good source to learn how to kill someone,” and it did indeed inspire a series of copycat murders.

The most notorious was that of Belgian teen Alisson Cambier. She had befriended 24-year-old Thierry Jaradin and was visiting him in his home one day when he propositioned her.

After she refused, he excused himself to another room, where he donned the iconic Ghostface costume. He selected two large knives, which he used to stab Cambier 30 times in the manner of the victim in the film’s opening scene. After he did what he set out to do, he made a few phone calls, confessed to the crime, and later admitted to police that he’d planned the incident modelled after the film.

Authorities were shocked and disgusted by Jaradin’s actions, given that he had no criminal record or history of mental illness, except apparently a habit of trying to pick up 15-year-old girls.